Confirmation Bias through Selective Readout of Information Encoded in Human Parietal Cortex.
Hame Park1, Ayelet Arazi1, Bharath Chandra Talluri1,2
1Section Computational Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, Hamburg 20251, Germany.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|July 9, 2024
Summary
Confirmation bias in decision-making stems from how people use information, not how they initially process sensory evidence. This finding suggests that controlling how we utilize encoded information can mitigate biased choices.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Decision Science
Background:
- Decision-makers exhibit confirmation bias, selectively processing evidence aligned with existing beliefs.
- The neural basis of this bias, whether in evidence encoding or utilization, remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether confirmation bias arises from sensory evidence encoding or evidence utilization in the brain.
- To differentiate the neural mechanisms underlying selective evidence processing during decision-making.
Main Methods:
- Human participants performed a visual-spatial estimation task with sequential evidence samples.
- Magnetoencephalography (MEG) measured cortical population activity during the task.
- Participants' subsequent evidence processing was analyzed based on consistency with their interim choice.
Main Results:
- Evidence encoding in cortical activity (parietal and primary visual cortex) did not differ based on consistency with the interim choice.
- Encoded evidence contributed less to the final estimation report when it was inconsistent with the previously chosen category.
- Subsequent evidence processing was modulated by its consistency with the interim choice, indicating a bias in utilization.
Conclusions:
- Confirmation bias originates from the utilization of encoded sensory evidence, not its initial encoding.
- This bias in information utilization, rather than sensory processing, offers a potential target for cognitive control and improved decision-making.
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